Henri Théodore Pigozzi

Henri Théodore Pigozzi (born June 26, 1898 in Turin , Italy ; † November 18, 1964 ) was a Franco- Italian businessman and industrialist as well as the founder of the automotive company SIMCA ( Société Industrielle de Méchanique et de Carrosserie Automobile ).

Life

Henri Théodore Pigozzi was born in Turin as Enrico Teodoro Pigozzi , his father disappeared in 1912, leaving him responsible for his mother and sister and for a small transport company. At the end of the First World War he was drafted and could not start trading again until 1919.

He secured the distribution rights for English and American motorcycles in the Piedmont region and sold motorcycles from Allied army stocks. From 1920 to 1922 he also worked for a company that imported coal from Saarland . In 1924 he founded his own company that imported scrap from France that was needed for steel production in Piedmont - and here especially for FIAT  . This made Giovanni Agnelli aware of him, who was looking for a general agent for France at the time . Since Pigozzi already knew his way around French industry, he became the general agent for FIAT in France in 1926 at the age of 28.

At the request of FIAT and with the approval of the French government, he founded SAFAF ( Société Anonyme Française des Automobiles Fiat ) in 1927 , which initially imported vehicles from Italy. Three years later, the increase in import duties made it practically impossible to import the vehicles, which is why Pigozzi acquired the former workshop of the Manessius brothers in Levallois to assemble the FIAT Balilla as the "6 CV Fiat Française" from imported parts and manufactured in France for sale as a French product.

At the end of 1934 he saw a poster on the street in Paris St. Germain that the closed automobile factory Donnet-Zedel in Nanterre was offering for sale and bought it for 8,050,000 francs. On November 2, 1934 the company Simca ( Société Industrielle de Mécanique et de Carrosserie Automobile ) was founded, in which FIAT was largely involved. The acquired factory was modernized in record time and the first 6 CVs rolled off the assembly line in Nanterre as early as the spring of 1935. The brand became a great success, especially with the production of the Simca 5 from 1936, a license build of the Fiat 500 Topolino . Under Pigozzi's direction, the Nanterre factory became one of the most modern automobile factories of the time.

In 1954 Simca took over the Poissy automobile plant near Paris from Ford Société Anonyme France ( Ford SAF ) and converted it into what was then the most modern automobile plant in Europe by 1957. In 1960 Simca was split into two companies, Simca Automobiles SA (for automotive products) and Simca Industries SA (for non-automotive products).

From the late 1950s, Pigozzi negotiated with Chrysler to expand its stake in Simca, which the French state did not like. It was not at a time when France was leaving NATO for an international American company to take over a thriving French company. On October 5, 1962, de Gaulle greeted him at the Paris Motor Show with the words Bonjour, Mister Pigozzi ... and thereby made the negotiations with Chrysler public. By 1971 Chrysler increased its stake in Simca to almost 100%.

He remained President of Simca until 1963. He was ousted by the Americans when they discovered that the transaction did not include "Simca Industries SA", which held important trademark rights for "Simca Automobiles SA". On May 30th, Georges Héreil, who came from Sud Aviation , took over the management of Simca.

On November 18, 1964, almost exactly 30 years to the day after Simca was founded, Pigozzi died unexpectedly. Throughout his life he had shielded his private life from the public. On November 21st, the automobile world gathered in the church of Saint-Pierre de Neuilly to say goodbye to Pigozzi. The eulogy held u. a. Umberto Agnelli . Pigozzi was buried in Turin on November 23rd.

literature

• Jean-Paul Rousseau and Jaques Rousseau: Simca Histoire d'une marque , Fontainebleau 1996 ISBN 2-84078-039-9